Wrestling superstar triple H a vampire? Hunter Hearst Helmsley takes M & F behind the scenes of his wild Hollywood ride

Muscle & Fitness, May, 2004 by Michael Berg

M & F Would you like to continue with action movie roles or try something else?

HUNTER I'm happy just being an action guy. If you want to pay me $20 million to make a film in which all I do is beat the hell out of people, I'm fine with that. Nobody's going to book me to do Shakespeare, nor should they. I know what I am, I know what I do. On that same point, I think there's a huge need for [a pure action star]. Nobody's going to buy Ben Affleck as an ass-kicker.

BODY SLAM

M & F How big of a bodybuilding fan are you?

HUNTER Last year I didn't go because I was getting married that day, but the three years prior, I've been to the Olympia Weekend. I go there as a huge fan. [IFBB Pro Division Chairman] Wayne DeMilia laughs at me. He has said to me backstage, "You're the biggest celebrity here, and you walk around with your eyes wide open, looking at these guys like you're in awe." I am, Maybe they're fans of mine, but I'm a fan of theirs.

M & F With your pedal-to-the-metal schedule, how do you ever get a workout in?

HUNTER That's hard. When I hear people who are home every day say, "I don't have time to work out"--you have time to work out. I've trained in a grass hut in Africa before, where I had to use cinder blocks for weights. It's not about having a million-dollar gym. It's all what you want to put into it.

M & F What's your general approach to training?

HUNTER When I go to the gym, my goal is to focus and bust ass. I train hard--to failure--for a short period and then leave my body alone to recover.

M & F How many days per week do you lift?

HUNTER I usually get in the gym about four days a week. I split my bodyparts up. Chest and biceps, shoulders and triceps, back, and legs. Or, right now for example, I'm not getting to the gym as much, so I do a three-day split: legs one day, chest and back one day, shoulders and arms one day.

M & F What does a typical workout look like?

HUNTER My workouts aren't long, only 30-45 minutes, 2-4 exercises per bodypart. Once I'm warmed up, I'll do just one set to failure--aiming for 6-8 reps per set for upper-body exercises, 10-12 or more for legs--and I move to the next exercise. Very rarely do I do multiple sets to failure. I stick to basic exercises, depending on my injuries at the time. My chest, for instance--about a year ago I had an elbow problem that limited my pressing ability, so I started prefatiguing. I'd warm up on the bench press, then do a set of pec-deck flyes to failure right before my heavy working set of benches. I was still reaching failure on the bench, but with a lot less weight than I could lift normally, which didn't bother my elbow.

M & F What's your current goal, physique-wise?

HUNTER It changes all the time. I'll get real lean, like last year for Wrestlemania when I dropped to about 250. Once I got there, I immediately wanted to get heavier again. Around 265 is about as heavy as I normally go. That's because I have a fast metabolism--the hardest thing for me is eating enough food to maintain my bodyweight, especially when I'm wrestling a halfhour every night and training.